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It seems like just the other night. But 7,184 sleeps have come and gone since Toronto knocked Detroit out of the playoffs in a rollicking seven-game series.

And if you can remember 1993, you’re old.

Around these parts, it was the loudest hockey hurrah heard in decades, the Mighty Mouse Maple Leafs dumping the colossi Red Wings on Nik Borschevsky’s 4-3 OT winner, Pat Burns behind the bench pointing to Cliff Fletcher in the press box at Joe Louis Arena.

From memorable spring to Winter Classic: Of the three dozen players who dressed that May 1 evening in the Motor City, 17 will lace ’em up again on Dec. 31, in a New Year’s Eve double matinee afternoon of vintage hockey.

Riper, creakier, some of them Hall of Famed, led by captains of yore Wendel Clark and Stevie Yzerman, the two Original Six clubs are set to line up against each other in the annual Alumni Showdown as part of the outdoor Winter Classic festivities. The current Toronto-Detroit clubs have their standings-meaningful match on Jan. 1 at Michigan Stadium.

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“They’re two of the main teams from the old Norris Division so it’s special,” says Clark, 47, the prototypical Leaf C-man. “Back then, it felt like Toronto and Detroit were always playing back-to-back games, Friday and Saturday, there and here.”

Boisterous affairs they typically were too, in Clark’s era as a Leaf dating back to ’87 and ’88 post-season encounters, both of which the Red Wings won. “It was a great rivalry in the ’80s,” he recalls, intensified by those Friday-Saturday tilts. “There was always a big build-up, the papers saying it was going to be a war and then there’d be no fights, just hockey. Then the next night, when everybody was expecting clean hockey, there’d be all these fights breaking out.”

In his first two NHL seasons, hardnosed No. 17 registered 10 fights against the Red Wings. They were usually full-tilt boogie bouts, none more so than the multiple rounds he went with the late Bob Probert. It was Probert who triggered the notorious “Wendy” jeers in the ’93 playoffs when Clark declined to tango. He’d been told by Burns to stay out of the penalty box, turn the other cheek on Probert. “But I wasn’t allowed to say that I’d been told not to fight him,” Clark revealed much later. Instead, when the series resumed in Toronto after the Leafs had dropped the first two games, Clark unspooled one of his most commanding performances, silencing the critics with a goal and two assists in the 4-2 win.

All these years later, Clark shrugs off the baiting by a now-deceased foe. “Aw, at the end of the day, it’s just all part of the playoffs.”

Alumni games don’t feature much bang-bang. There’s no hate-on anymore. Clark won’t even be strapping on the braces that once held together his poor, abused knees. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Many will have forgotten that Clark, after being traded away by the Leafs and before returning for a career-concluding encore — actually, he came back twice — spent a dozen games, weirdly, as a Red Wing, picked up at the 1999 trade deadline for the playoff run. That was the year Detroit was set aside by Colorado in the conference semi-final.

He rarely even skates anymore, too busy with a son who plays hockey and two daughters who play volleyball. And he won’t be training much for this event either, though observers will hope to see the left winger unleashing one of his signature dead-eye howitzers from just inside the faceoff circle. Took off Curtis Joseph’s mask with that bazooka baby in Game 7 of the ’93 Norris Division final.

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“I don’t know, we’ll see what happens,” says Clark. “The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be pretty sore afterwards.”

It’s a rich sepia-toned history these clubs share, having met 23 times — 117 games — in the post-season, on seven occasions for the whole Stanley Cup shebang, Leafs prevailing for six championships. The last time was 1964. And if you can remember that, you’re really old. In many ways —until the Red Wings got seriously flashy in the ’90s — they reflected each other’s lunch bucket ethos; not pretty but workmanlike, gritty. Both also suffered under the fist of dictatorial ownership.

The names of those who wore red-and-white and blue-and-white through periods of both glory and indignity read like a hockey who’s who, from distant eras to just an eyelash shy of contemporary. Gordie Howe — that’s Mr. Hockey to you and me — might still be able to show the alumni pups a thing or two at age 87 but will settle for a Detroit bench-boss gig in the storied company of Scotty Bowman, with Jacques Demers and Barry Smith rounding out the coaching ensemble.

A confirmed Toronto lineup was announced on Hockey Night in Canada last weekend, just before the modern-day Leafs knocked the stuffing out of defending Cup champions Chicago Blackhawks. Those in attendance and those watching at home (both games televised by CBC) will savour the reunion of Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald and Tiger Williams, all three with — gulp — grandchildren in tow.

Mats Sundin, classiest captain ever, has also given his RSVP, back wearing the Leaf jersey he wore into the Hall just a year ago. He’s agreed to make the long trek from Sweden to Comerica Park, despite a knee ailment and thanks to some nagging from Tie Domi. Sundin is part of the Game 2 roster, along with former teammates Domi, Darcy Tucker, Steve Thomas, Felix Potvin, Curtis Joseph, Dave Ellett and Sundin’s own idol, Borje Salming.

Generations of Leafs, shoulder-to-shoulder, on the outdoor ice, the boys of winter appropriating the Tigers’ home ballpark field from the boys of summer.

Playing the game they love they will always be boys, no matter the season of their lives.

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Editor’s Note: Sundin has since pulled out of the game because of his knee ailment. See story here.

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